Bankrupt former Delta Petroleum CEO Roger Parker, still under the cloud of a federal securities lawsuit alleging illegal insider trading at the company, lashed out against billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp as the reason for Delta’s demise.

In a filing in his personal bankruptcy case in Denver, Parker said it was Tracinda that wrecked the company he founded, not him, as Tracinda alleges in a separate lawsuit. Parker lays the blame at the feet of Kerkorian soldier Dan Taylor, who had been on Delta’s board and then took the reins in 2009 when Parker resigned.

“It took 16 years for Parker and his team to lead Delta from a small cap stock to a successful company with a valuation in excess of $1 billion,” Parker says in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. “It took Dan Taylor and Tracinda two and one-half years to plunge Delta into bankruptcy.”

The case has lately turned into a mud-slinging-fest that, despite the legal verbiage necessary of court documents, reads like a soap opera scandal.

Somewhere along the line, bankrupt oil exec Roger Parker ticked off the folks at Tracinda Corp, awakening a sleeping dog that is now gnawing on the bones and sucking at the marrow of the skeletal remains.

Parker, 51, is the former CEO at Delta Petroleum and later Recovery Energy who the Securities and Exchange Commission says is the guy responsible for fueling insider trading deals that netted nearly $800,000 for its participants who sold Delta stock in 2008.

[media-credit name=”Denver Post file photo” align=”alignright” width=”270″][/media-credit] Back in the day, Roger Parker was chairman and CEO of Delta Petroleum.

That happened, the SEC says, when Parker let buddy Michael Van Gilder and an as-yet-named individual know that billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian and his Tracinda outfit were looking to make a major buy-in to Delta. On that info, the insiders bought, then sold Delta stock when Tracinda’s $684 million purchase became public.

That’s not the sleeping dog part.

Along the way of their partnership, Tracinda ended up loaning Parker $7.5 million to cover a shortfall of Delta stock Parker had margined, having pledged his shares as collateral. The call happened in November 2008 when Delta stock fell below $4.

David joined The Denver Post in 1999, his second go-round in the Mile High City. Since then he’s covered a variety of topics – from human services to consumer affairs – most always with an investigative bent. Currently he does investigations and banking.